Letters and a map document humane & racial justice movements that pointed the way for Martin Luther King Jr. ARK, Virginia––Bus driver Alan Lemon, then 59, hoped to find antiques that might be sold online in 2018 when he and a friend decided to explore the attic of his great grandfather John W. Lemon’s long […]
Four chimps shot dead at the Furuvik Zoo in Sweden––why?
Shootings, as info emerges, look more like panic than a safety precaution GAVLE, Sweden––The more information emerges about the December 14, 2022 fatal shooting of four chimpanzees and wounding of another at the Furuvik Zoo, about 100 miles north of Stockholm, the Swedish capital city, the more the shootings look like an ill-informed panic […]
Florida paradox: Kill a fish, go to jail; kill a million fish, go to market
“These were not just animals” STUART, Florida––Florida authorities, for the fifth time in sixth years, are pursuing a case of alleged cruelty to fish, a category of offense barely recognized anywhere else. Paradoxically, four million Floridians fish, more than the fishing populations of California and Texas combined, and indeed more people than fish in any […]
Iceland fisheries minister hints she may pull the plug on whaling
But whaling baron Kristján Loftsson, 80, will not go down without a fight REYKJAVIK, Iceland––Iceland minister of food, agriculture, and fisheries Svandis Svavarsdottir on February 4, 2022 indicated in a guest column for the newspaper and news web site Morgunblaðið that she may pull the plug on the nearly moribund Icelandic whaling industry. But Kristján Loftsson, […]
COVID-19 skins fur trade: Ireland bans fur farming; Finland vaccinates mink
Ireland becomes 15th European Union nation to ban or phase out the mink industry DUBLIN, HELSINKI––Responding to continuing discoveries of the COVID-19 coronavirus in factory-farmed mink, the government of the Republic of Ireland has elected to ban fur faming. The Finnish Food Authority, by contrast, is experimentally vaccinating farmed mink in hopes fur demand […]
The best news of 2021 for North Atlantic seals, whales, & dolphins
Young Newfoundlanders rescue seven stranded pilot whales near scene of “A Whale For The Killing” EMBREE, Newfoundland––The best news in 2021 both for harp seals and gray seals in Atlantic Canada and for pilot whales and Atlantic white-sided dolphins in the Faroe Islands, 2,000 miles east across the North Atlantic, might in the long run […]
Is mink farming “too dirty to die”? Or is pending bill the coup-de-grace?
Some in the U.S. mink industry see COVID-19 as a growth opportunity WASHINGTON D.C.––Will the COVID-19 delta variant finally kill mink farming in the U.S., after COVID-19 in all forms has killed more than 633,000 Americans? Or will HR 4310, dubbed the MINKS Act as acronym for “Minks in Narrowly Kept Spaces Are Superspreaders Act,” […]
Marine mammal activist Ben White, 53, dies of abdominal cancer
Long problematic career Ben White, 53, died on July 30, 2005, in Friday Harbor, Washington, after a six-month struggle against abdominal cancer. White “cut open dolphin-holding nets in Japan, scaled buildings to hang anti-fur banners, jumped in front of naval ships in Hawaii to stop sonar tests, and slept atop old-growth trees to protest logging,” […]
Second Finn dog study conflates defensive behavior with aggression
But the Finn study does not discount the influence of genetics on aggression HELSINKI, Finland––The same Finn researchers who in March 2020 published a study strongly affirming the importance of breeding in dog behavior have in May 2020 published a second analysis of the same data which––at a glance––argues just the opposite. The second […]
Fish farming foe Kurt Oddekalv, no bunny-hugger, dies trying to save dog
The dog died too Fish farming foe Kurt Willy Oddekalv, 63, on January 11, 2020 died from drowning and hypothermia suffered in attempting to rescue his daughter’s dog Kompis, who had fallen through ice on a lake near their home in Kalandseidet, Bergen, Norway. The dog Kompis was found dead nearby. As a sergeant in the […]